A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. The principal types of such instruments are typically classified by the method of producing sound, and can include percussion, stringed, keyboard, wind, and electronic instruments. A saxophone, for example, is a wind instrument and is usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece. Brass instruments produce sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. The length of this tubular resonator can be effectively lengthened and shortened to opening holes along this tubular resonator (i.e., the body of the instrument) with many bends in it (i.e., the instrument). Opening and closing of keys positioned along the body of the instrument to shorten or lengthen the effective length of the instrument body raises and lowers the pitch of the instruments sound respectively. Key guards are positioned above various keys to protect the key and to limit the amount the key can be opened. Further, the voice of the saxophone can be set by adjusting the amount the key can be opened using key guard screws. The position of these key guard screws are typically set by a professional technician and are not moved by the user of the instrument.
In the art, accessories and adaptations have been developed to modify, enhance, change and/or dampen the sound of an instrument. Such accessories provide added expression, amplitude and/or quality of sound. Despite development of such accessories, further devices and assemblies are desired to add further tonal variation and even improvement of the sound of a brass woodwind instrument.